Experimental Study of the Seed-Filling Uniformity of Sugarcane Single-Bud Billet Planter

In this paper, a single-bud sugarcane seed-metering device was proposed to reduce the labor intensity of sugarcane planting and also to improve its automation and efficiency. In the research, single-bud billets were expelled by rake bars of rake bar chain in the seed box. A lateral plate of the seed box was removed and replaced by a transparent plastic plates in order to observe the seed-filling process. Single-factor tests and orthogonal tests were conducted in order to study the seed-filling uniformity of the single-bud billet planter. The results showed that the angle of the rake bar chain, the number of billets and the interactions between them had significant effects on the qualification filling rate Sq, the excess filling rate Sm and the miss out filling rate Se. According to the orthogonal and dual-factor tests data, the optimal combination of the structural parameters of the seed-metering device was determined as follows: rake bar chain angle of 117°, a number of billets of 700 and the rotary speed of the rake bar chain of 90 rpm. In this study, the value of Sq was maximized (85.06%) and the value of Se was minimized (7.03%). This study can serve as a reference for optimizing the design of seed-metering devices of single-bud sugarcane planter.